It was the best fake Twitter account ever, deftly satirizing Rahm Emanuel, and elevating the Tweet and the f-word to the level of literature. But the mystery writer was never revealed–until now. There were many storylines in Rahm Emanuel's romp to the Chicago mayor's office: a powerful presidential aide leaves the White House; a mayor's race without a Daley or even an incumbent; a candidate with a hazy claim on residency; the meltdown of former senator Carol Moseley Braun; the terrible voter.. show all text

Lots and lots of buzz today in all the major newspapers about how J.P. Morgan is trying to buy 10% or so of Twitter for $450 million.
As far as I can tell, all of the stories are wrong. In particular, say my sources, Twitter isn’t negotiating with anyone – J.P. Morgan or otherwise – about a new funding round. The last round with Kleiner Perkins seems to have more than satisfied their near term capital appetite. Also, J.P. Morgan isn’t currently trying to buy Twitter shar.. show all text

If you've got a working Gmail account, you might want to back it up every so often — as many as 500,000 Gmail users lost access to their inboxes this morn, and some of them are reporting (via Twitter and support forums) that years worth of messages, attachments and Google Chat logs had vanished by the time they were finally able to log on. While we haven't experienced the issue personally, we're hearing that the bug effectively reset some accounts, treating their owners as new users complete w.. show all text

(ok folks, i've gotta take the kids to basketball practice in a few hours, so will try to power through this — that means limited crazy fonts, profanity, wild pix… sorry little monsters, next time 😉
3 major points i plan to cover in this post:
1) Angel List Fucking Rocks. Period. it's the single greatest innovation in our industry in the last 5 years (aside from LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, & Quora) and it's great for almost all participants. and while social proof can be abused /.. show all text

Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by @msuster (Mark Suster), a 2x entrepreneur, now VC at GRP Partners. His second company was sold this company to Salesforce.com, where he served as VP of Product Management. Read more about Suster at Bothsidesofthetable.
There’s lots of discussion out there about a new and much-loved service called AngelList that connects entrepreneurs to angel investors.
I was reluctant to write about AngelList because the debate on pros / cons is pretty n.. show all text

Yesterday I deleted my AngelList account. Doing so generated a lot of questions on Twitter, in email and from the press so I want to explain myself.
Its a decision I’ve been wrestling with for the last few months as I’ve found the service increasingly not matching my investment philosophy. That’s not to say the service isn’t a valuable one for entrepreneurs or even certain kinds of investors. I believe that it can be. Its just not a fit for me.
For those not fa.. show all text

In January, Google promised that it would take action against content farms that were gaining top listings with “shallow” or “low-quality” content. Now the company is delivering, announcing a change to its ranking algorithm designed take out such material. New Change Impacts… Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.

Our goal is simple: to give people the most relevant answers to their queries as quickly as possible. This requires constant tuning of our algorithms, as new content—both good and bad—comes online all the time. Many of the changes we make are so subtle that very few people notice them. But in the last day or so we launched a pretty big algorithmic improvement to our ranking—a change that noticeably impacts 11.8% of our queries—and we wanted to let people know what&rsquo.. show all text

NBC today is launching a promotion offering free Chipotle food for anyone who watches a 90-second promo on Facebook for the upcoming show America’s Next Great Restaurant.
The network is using an app on the show’s Facebook Page where, in exchange for watching the promo, visitors get a buy-one, get-one-free coupon at Chipotle. The chain’s founder and CEO, Steve Ells, is one of four investors in the show.
Customers who print out the coupon can get a free Chipotle meal, including .. show all text

Disney has just acquired Togetherville, a social network for kids 10 years of age or younger, we’ve confirmed with the company. Terms of the acquisition are not being disclosed at the moment.
Togetherville, which exited beta last year, mimics the experience of adult social networking sites, i.e. Facebook but in an age-appropriate and parent-monitored environment. Togetherville promises a safer, more secure environment, where parents can moderate who their children are connecting with. Par.. show all text

Filtering the web so you don’t have to for February 22nd 2011 through February 23rd 2011:

Cyber-D Software: Cyber-D’s Autodelete 2.24 – Cyber-D's Autodelete can delete old files in a folder (and subfolders) you selected. Simply select the folder you wish to clean (downloads for example), set the rules (older than 30 days since created) and how to delete (move, recycle, secure delete).

The long-awaited fourteenth release of WordPress is now available. WordPress 3.1 “Reinhardt” is named in honor of the jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt. Version 3.1 is available for download, or you can update from within your dashboard.
This release features a lightning fast redesigned linking workflow which makes it easy to link to your existing posts and pages, an admin bar so you’re never more than a click away from your most-used dashboard pages, a streamline.. show all text

This morning TwapperKeeper, the Twitter-based service that allowed users to create and export archives of Tweets around certain words or hashtags, announced that it would be shutting down a number of key features of the service to remain in compliance with Twitter's Terms of Service.
According to the company's blog post, the archiving and API features will be shut down by March 20. While TwapperKeeper may be just one service among many to be forced into compliance, is its fate indicative of a l.. show all text

Google is working on a "major" overhaul of its Chrome browser user interface (UI). Among the options on the table is the elimination of the URL bar, which could be the most significant UI change to the web browser since its invention. Another feature that appears to be already signed off is the support of multiple user profiles that can be used in parallel.

On Friday afternoon, Paul J. Miller caused what passes for a kerfuffle inside the technology journalism meta-bubble.
Miller, as you know, is “Senior Associate Editor” at our estranged sister site Engadget – or at least he was until yesterday when he posted a resignation note on his blog. The reason for his leaving? The Aol Way.
You’ve already read the document: Tim Armstong and David Eun’s 58-page death warrant for journalists and the practice of journalism at Aol… show all text

I was asked to enter the Bloomberg BusinessWeek Debate Room to make the case “for” Twitter as a platform for journalism. On the other side, ScribbleLive CEO Michael De Monte debates why it is “for the birds.”
But before we get to far into the discussion, let’s frame the discussion. The original debate topic posed by BusinessWeek, “Twitter Isn’t Journalism, Or Is It?” is a bit misleading and honestly, I think it’s the wrong question to .. show all text

The Gillmor Gang conflated two major stories this week into one: Apple’s terms of service for app store approval, and Twitter’s actions regarding UberMedia. The noise regarding Apple being hauled in front of the DOJ illustrates just how powerful Apple’s strategy continues to be. As many point out, Android’s market share makes it virtually impossible to tar iOS with monopoly status. It’s almost as though Erick and Steve planned it that way, right down to Google foll.. show all text

As we all know by now, there is unrest in the Middle East. You can read about the latest news from worldwide journalists located in all of the countries. The stories are amazing to read and watch. From an Internet perspective, the AFP is reporting that access to Facebook was cut earlier today in the Libyan capital of Tripoli. The AFP notes, “From early evening it was impossible to access the popular Facebook site, and connections to other sites were either very slow or not possible, they .. show all text

Well this is interesting. According to this post, Twitter has suspended UberTwitter and Twidroyd for violating its policies.
The action is even more fascinating considering that UberMedia, which operates UberTwitter and Twidroyd, is building an army of third-party Twitter clients, including Tweetdeck, that compete directly with Twitter’s web and mobile clients.
Here’s the response we received from Carolyn Penner, Twitter’s spokeswoman:
We ask all developers in Twitter ecosyste.. show all text

TED Video – Final Jeopardy! and the Future of Watson – Join host Stephen Baker, author of "Man v. Machine," as he discusses Watson's performance on Jeopardy! and the possible real-world applications of this technology with the following panelists: IBM Watson Principal Investigator Dr. David Ferrucci, IBM Fellow and CTO of IBM's SOA Center for Excellence Kerrie Holley and Columbia University Professor of Clinical Medicine Dr. Herbert Chase.

Chemistry Add-in for Word – Microsoft Research – The Chemistry Add-in for Word makes it easier to insert and modify chemical information, such as labels, formulas, and 2-D depictions, within Microsoft Office Word. Additionally, it enables the creation of inline “chemical zones,” the rendering of print-ready visual depictions of chemical structures, and the ability to store and expose chemical information in a semantically rich manner.

Google has just rolled out a convenient new tool for importing your Delicious bookmarks to Google Bookmarks.
The simple importer takes your Delicious login credentials (or lets you use a one-click OAuth button) and imports all your bookmarks, preserving labels or tags.
Considering Google’s rather broad reach as a company, the importer is likely more than just a friendly bid for more Google Bookmarks users.
Bookmarks was launched in 2005, but it’s never been a huge hit — or a m.. show all text

About a week ago I sent out a tweet “ARGHHHHH. We are all freaking busting at the seems over here to tell you guys some big news……. “.
This is what we have been dying to share. BlogWorld & New Media Expo will host it’s first east coast event at the Jacob K. Javitz Center in New York City this May 24 – 26! But wait there’s more. “BlogWorld East” will be co-located with Book Expo America! Why are we doing this?
Because you.. show all text

As if Toyota hasn’t already had enough bad press in the past year or so, there’s a storm brewing focused on a scheme that pretty much amounts to buying reviews from mommy bloggers. Crazy? You betcha.
Clarification – there appears to be a campaign afoot soliciting mom bloggers to write positive blog posts and reviews, share them widely in the social media space, and “thumbs up” a series of Toyota YouTube videos. And the reward dangled in front of these bloggers.. show all text

As you’ve doubtless heard by now, yesterday Apple revealed its new fee structure for premium content: all apps that offer premium content outside of the App Store have to also offer it via Apple’s official in-app purchases (this includes Amazon’s Kindle) and Apple takes a 30% cut of all subscriptions. The response has predictably ranged from outrage to approval — my colleague MG Siegler did a thorough piece talking about why this makes sense for Appl.. show all text

Last night we accidentally tweeted from our @RedCross account something that was meant to come from a personal account. Here’s what it looked like: We realized our honest mistake (the Tweeter was not drunk) and deleted the above Tweet. We all know that it’s impossible to really delete a tweet like this, so we acknowledged our mistake: In the meantime we found so many of you to be sympathetic and understanding. While we’re a 130 year old humanitarian organizatio.. show all text

SlideShare, a presentation-sharing startup with more than 45 million users, is expanding into the web conferencing business Wednesday with Zipcast, a new browser-based product for public and private video, audio and web conferences.
Zipcast offers SlideShare users a fast and simple way to initiate web conferences around presentations, whether they be their own presentations or any of the millions of public presentations hosted on the site.
The download-free web conferencing product — whic.. show all text